Here’s the cover for Human Rights in an Advancing Civilization.  It’s actually been up for a few weeks now on the publisher’s website.

If you’ve browsed human rights books before, you may have an idea of how challenging it is to come up with a cover image to represent a concept.  Of the books on my shelf, most of the covers either focus on the title or a combination of the title and abstract designs.  Globes are also popular, as are sunrises (a sunrise over the globe brings it all together), and occasionally a vague image suggestive of human rights abuses.

I think this image strikes the right balance between reality and abstraction, caution and promise.  Wendi Momen told me, “to me the bird represents rights and freedom, but as yet unrealised, and the barbed wire the potential threats to those.”